The Nanay
River in Perú can be found 2.2 miles away from the city of Iquitos,
Department of Loreto, in the northern part of the
Peruvian jungle. The northern boundaries of the Peruvian jungle are adjacent to Ecuador and
Colombia and its eastern boundaries are adjacent to Brazil. Iquitos
lies between the intersection of the Nanay River and the Itaya River

In the early seventies, Acuario Bustamante, a well-established tropical fish
export company in Iquitos, decided to breed one of the most attractive fish
of the region: wild discus. This company began by gathering the
best species of wild discus from the Putumayo River (Colombia and Perú
borderline) and the most colorful species from the Tefé and Iça Rivers from Brazil. Acuario Bustamante collected thousands of high quality
wild discus for breeding purposes. They contained these wild discus fish in a
man-made oxbow lake (known as “cochas”) in the Moronococha area.
Certainly, Acuario Bustamante knew of the excellence of the water conditions
in the Nanay River which were ideal for breeding purposes.

Unfortunately for Acuario Bustamante, while these wild discus were kept in
captivity for a few months, the rainy season started. The water levels
began to rise in the cochas
without any warning and this caused the dam to erupt. As a result,
these colorful discus were poured into the Nanay River.

Rio
Nanay

A few years later, the
Coriat Brothers, another large exporter of tropical fish, transported a
shipment of wild discus by seaplane from the Putumayo River to Iquitos.
During that flight, the Coriat Brothers were forced to land in the Nanay
River because of a technical failure due to overload shipment. As a result of
this unforeseen aircraft emergency, the Coriat Brothers had no other option
than to dump approximately 30 boxes of wild discus into the Nanay River.
This was the second introduction of wild discus population into the Nanay River.

Today, the population of discus has increased considerably
in the Nanay River and nobody can deny that the Nanay River is the natural habitat
of the most beautiful wild discus such as the red spotted green.